THE MEASUREMENT OF SEDIMENT COLOR USING THE COLORTRON(TM) SPECTROPHOTOMETER

An inexpensive digital color scanner with a 3 x 2 mm viewing window is used to measure the color of sediments in two marine cores with the o bjective of determining variations in sediment provenance and depositi onal history. We focus mainly on the three Commission Internationale d e l'Eclairage (CIE) Laboratory designations of color, sometimes referr ed to as L a b*. In one core, comparisons were made between measureme nts on color photographs and on dry sediment fractions, and in the oth er example, we compared measurements on the sediment surface itself ve rsus color measurements on glossy and matte photographic finishes. In the case of core HU87033-015 from the Labrador Shelf, the color measur ements correlate significantly with changes in the detrital carbonate content of the sediment and with the rock magnetic susceptibility. Com parisons between a scanned gray-scale photographic image and a detaile d 1 cm sampling by the spectrophotometer indicate a close correlation between the gray-scale and the ''brightness'' parameter, L.